Kisiizi Partners came into being as “Sponsor a Nurse” in 2000. Our remit is to support Christian Hospitals in developing countries. We recognise that whilst many institutions can access grants and funds for capital projects, hospitals very often struggle to find money for running costs. Their patients are amongst the poorest in the world, often living near the edge as subsistence farmers. When the rains come they can just about manage to feed their families and keep their heads above water, but when someone in the family falls sick, everything rapidly falls apart. Going to hospital is a family affair, and a sick child is accompanied by parents and siblings. Whilst the family are at the hospital there is no-one to tend the livestock and plant or harvest the crops. Subsistence farmers have little in the way of ready cash and an extended stay in hospital all too often results in the sale of livestock or land to meet the cost of treatment, leaving the family even worse off.
For this reason, it is vital to keep the cost of treatment to a minimum, but at the same time the hospital must pay the wages of the staff, and buy drugs and disposables. Equipment must be maintained and from time to time replaced and updated.
The Christian health sector plays a vital role in delivering health care in many developing countries. Although some governments do make a contribution to running costs in recognition of the burden of health care provided by these institutions, there is always a funding gap between government grants and user fees on the one hand, and running costs on the other. Kisiizi Partners aims to stand in this gap and help make up the difference between income and running costs.
Christian Hospitals are frequently situated in remote rural areas and the recruitment and retention of a skilled and motivated workforce is a constant challenge. Often wages in government hospitals are paid at a higher rate whilst in the cities and larger towns at least, staff may also have the opportunity to moonlight in private clinics to supplement their wages.
Many large charities and grant making bodies stipulate that money will not be available for running costs and prefer to make grants towards capital costs or other special projects. There is also a philosophy that dictates that institutions or projects must be self sustaining.
Kisiizi Partners takes the view that in order for a community to become self sustaining it must be healthy. All communities need and deserve low cost health care, both preventative and curative, in order to survive. Healthy people can feed and care for their families, whereas those who are sick cannot. Kisiizi Partners has therefore chosen to support hospitals with a proven track record of providing high quality health care with compassion and integrity in situations where there is a demonstrable funding gap between income and expenditure and a manifest desire to deliver health care to poor people at a cost they can afford.
To find out more about Kisiizi Partners follow the links below: